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President Donald Trump’s administration told schools Friday that Title IX law barring sex discrimination will once again be subject to federal regulations from over four years ago.
The move effectively eliminates protections for gender identity in schools adopted by former President Joe Biden’s administration.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter intended for school leaders, an official with the U.S. Department of Education wrote that enforcement of Title IX is now based on “the principles and provisions of the 2020 Title IX Rule.” That means Title IX enforcement will no longer be based on the regulations adopted in 2024, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor wrote.
The Trump Education Department’s guidance comes in the wake of a Jan. 10 ruling by a federal judge that tossed out Biden Title IX rules.
In explaining the department’s rationale, Trainor cited an executive order Trump signed earlier this month that defined sex as “an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female.” The 2020 rules developed under then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos treated sex as a binary, but did not define it.
“President Trump ordered all agencies and departments within the Executive Branch to ‘enforce all sex-protective laws to promote [the] reality’ that there are ‘two sexes, male and female,’ and that “[t]hese sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” Trainor wrote. “Title IX must be enforced consistent with President Trump’s order.”
The 2024 regulations were praised by transgender students and LGBTQ advocates as enshrining critical protections related to student pronouns and transgender students’ school facilities such as restrooms. But critics said Biden’s rules improperly distorted and expanded Title IX’s stated protections against discrimination “on the basis of sex.”
Trump made criticisms of transgender rights a key element of his 2024 campaign, and schools have become a battleground for LGBTQ rights and related cultural issues in recent years.
Trainor’s letter technically does not carry the same force of federal law or regulations. But it does indicate the administration’s general view of the issue, and also conveys how the department’s Office for Civil Rights will approach relevant Title IX investigations into schools. Those two factors could heavily influence how school districts approach the matter.
In his letter, Trainor said open Office for Civil Rights investigations initiated under the Biden Title IX rule “should be immediately reoriented to comport fully with the requirements of the 2020 Title IX Rule.”
The 2020 regulations were controversial due to how they addressed sexual assault complaints. Unlike the Biden administration, the 2020 rules did not say that Title IX protections extend to gender identity.
In his letter, Trainor said the January decision from U.S. District Court Judge Danny Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky correctly ruled against the Biden administration’s position that “discrimination on the basis of sex also includes discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, and sexual orientation.”
However, discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes has been struck down in previous court rulings. Those decisions have also formed the basis for legal protections for gender identity.
It remains to be seen how the Trump Education Department’s view of sex stereotypes, which could cover a broad set of issues in schools, influences its enforcement of Title IX.
Andrew Ujifusa is a story editor at Chalkbeat.
